The Best Dressed Girl in Town
by Kitkat McRaebs
Summary: Is "made for each other" always enough? Rated T just in case.
1. Chapter 1

**(A/N: Hi! This is my take on my Sim ship :) Hope you like it. My main concern right now is Mortimer and Bella actually sounding like they're kids. I'm figuring them to be about nine or ten at this point, and I want it to sound accurate. Enjoy!)**

Part One – Childhood

"Mortimer!" At the sound of his name, the young boy turned. When he saw who was calling him, he slowed and started running in the direction of the house instead. "Bella!" Behind him, he heard the young girl stop, too, though she soon caught up to him again, and they ran side by side up the porch steps.

"Dinner's ready," said his mother, and she held the door open as the pair went racing past. "No running in the house!"

Laughing, Mortimer and Bella slowed to a walk as they went through the kitchen door together. Two plates of hamburger with what Mortimer was sure were gourmet patties sat on the kitchen table, laid with cutlery and napkins. Mortimer's mother was nothing if not decorous.

Bella took her place nearest the door and Mortimer slid into the other chair. He raised his hamburger to his nose, sniffed it, and made a face. "She _always_ puts lettuce in," he said in a low voice.

Bella laughed. "'Cause it's good for you, silly!" She picked up her own burger and took a big bite. Still making a face, Mortimer did the same.

After Bella polished off her burger and Mortimer finished his reluctantly, Cornelia came in with a slice of key lime pie for each of them. "There you are," she said, setting the plates down. She turned to the young girl. "Bella, will you be staying the night tonight?"

Bella shifted guiltily in her seat. "Um, thanks Mrs. Goth, but I'd better not. I stayed last night, and also my dad wants me to help him clean out the attic."

Cornelia nodded and turned to go. Once she'd left the kitchen, Mortimer pouted, letting his bottom lip jut out. "You're not staying?"

Bella raised her hands as if pleading guilty. "I'm sorry, Mortimer, but if I don't go home to help my dad again, he'll be really mad at me!"

Mortimer sat back, frowning, and folded his arms. "Why can't Michael do it?"

"He's gardening with Mom." She rolled her eyes and grinned at Mortimer. "Don't be mad, we're biking to the park tomorrow. And we're still on for the movies on Sunday morning, right?"

Grudgingly, Mortimer mumbled, "Yeah, I guess." Bella smiled at him, and eventually he had to smile back. There was no resisting her cheerfulness.

With a hug goodbye, Bella left, and Mortimer stood on the back porch watching her skip down the garden path to the driveway, wheel her bike to the road, and speed off. He sighed, and heard a chuckle from behind him. When he turned he saw Gunther setting down his briefcase on the island. Gunther came over and put a hand on his son's shoulder. "Missing her already?"

Mortimer sighed again. "Yeah."

"Well, knowing how much time you two spend together, I'm sure you have plans for tomorrow, and Sunday as well." Gunther laughed again. "We may as well just ask her to move in and have done with it."

The boy turned his face up to his father's, looking hopeful. "Really? Can Bella come and live with us?"

Gunther shook his head. "Sorry, son, but her parents might not like that idea. In fact, why don't you spend a couple of days apart next week? Give her parents some time with her. They barely see her!"

Mortimer's lip jutted out again. "But I like playing with her!" Suddenly his eyes lit up, an idea forming in his mind. "What if I went to Bella's for a few days? I like her brother, too, he's really cool. Can I, Dad, please?"

"That depends. Ask your mother, and see what the Bachelors think about it, okay?"

"Okay." But these conditions weren't registering as possible obstacles to Mortimer; his mind was already going through the things they could do at Bella's house, which, while it wasn't as grand nor did it have grounds as extensive as Goth Manor, had a playground in the backyard and quite a few places to explore.

Gunther ruffled the boy's hair. "Now, go upstairs and get ready for bed, or you won't get an answer from your mother on anything."

Mortimer rushed upstairs to his bedroom. 

On Sunday morning, Mortimer woke to the smell of toast, and he smiled. His mother always made his favorite on Sundays.

He got dressed and wandered downstairs and into the kitchen, where Cornelia was standing at the stove with a frying pan. Mortimer inhaled deeply. "Mmmm."

Cornelia smiled at her son. "Good morning, Mortimer. How many slices would you like today?"

"However many are left over after I eat!" Gunther joked, coming through the back door with the morning paper in his hand. He kissed Cornelia on the cheek, squeezed Mortimer's shoulder, and sat down at the kitchen table to read his paper. Mortimer poured himself a glass of orange juice and sat down, too.

After he'd eaten enough French toast to feel like he might explode, Mortimer asked, "Can we go to the theater now, Dad?"

"In five minutes, Mortimer," Gunther said from behind the paper. "Why don't you go get your jacket?"

As usual, Gunther wasn't finished reading for another fifteen minutes. By then, Mortimer was practically hopping with impatience. But finally they kissed Cornelia goodbye and walked out to the garage, where Gunther's black two-door coupe was ready and waiting.

Gunther parked in the gravel lot behind the theater, and as soon as the car stopped moving, Mortimer opened his door, scrambled out, and, slamming it shut, took off running to the entrance. And there was Bella, waiting for him. A smile lit up her face when he came into view.

"Hey, Morty, how are you?"

"Good, how about you?"

"I'm great! I'm really excited for the movie." He smiled and nodded. Then Bella pulled a face. "Not excited for school tomorrow."

He grinned and stuck out his tongue. "Not even excited to see me?"

She laughed and patted his shoulder. "I'm seeing you now!"

Yes, and Mortimer was ecstatic about it. They walked into the movie side by side, chatting happily, as Gunther followed behind, shaking his head slightly.

Mortimer didn't take in much of the movie, some adventure story about dinosaurs; he was too busy sneaking glances at Bella every five minutes, checking that she was enjoying it. Bella was laughing her head off, and every now and then, she'd look at Mortimer, who would at once laugh, too. Gunther sat one row behind and, thoroughly uninterested in the movie, watched his son watching Bella, a frown on his face.

Mortimer didn't seem to have many friends, and while Gunther and Cornelia were very glad that he got along so well with Bella, they were concerned that he seemed to be putting all his eggs in one basket. If he and Bella ever, God forbid, got in a fight, who would the boy have to turn to? Gunther knew that their living on the outskirts of town and the wealth and power of their family didn't help his son make friends, nor was Mortimer a particularly outgoing kid, but he was sure that spending every day together would drive the two apart, and he wanted Mortimer to have other people in his life.

When the movie ended, Mortimer turned to Gunther and pleaded to be allowed to bike back with Bella to her house. "Son, you don't have your bike with you," Gunther pointed out.

"That's okay, Mr. Goth, we can take turns riding mine," Bella said, smiling at her friend.

But Gunther shook his head and put his hand on Mortimer's shoulder. "Thank you, Bella, but I think I'd better take Mortimer home. I'm willing to bet there are things his mother would love some help with."

Mortimer looked on the point of protesting, but Bella, who was much better at interpreting the hidden subtext, gave him a look, and he said nothing. Gunther nodded curtly and turned to walk back to the car.

Bella pulled Mortimer in for a hug, whispering in his ear, "Don't be sad, Morty. We have our whole lives to play together."


	2. Chapter 2

Mortimer spent the rest of the afternoon digging in Cornelia's carefully-tended garden, still half-sulking. The shadows had stretched across the grass beyond the manor's gates when his mother came out of the sunroom and down the steps towards him.

"Well done, Mortimer, you made a lot of progress today," she said, smiling warmly, but he didn't return it. At his lack of response, she got down to business. "Your father has an important business dinner tonight, so you need to wash off all this dirt and get dressed."

Mortimer folded his arms and frowned. "It's Dad's dinner, why do _I_ have to get dressed up?"

Cornelia frowned. "We need to make a good impression and represent your father in a good light, young man."

"But why do I even have to be there?" he protested, his voice veering towards a whine now. "Why can't I eat by myself?"

"Mortimer!" Cornelia said sharply, anger in her voice now. "You are a Goth, and along with your father and I, you will entertain these people tonight. They have a _lot_ of clout at Doo Peas Corporate, and could get your father named the next CEO. So you will do as you are told and get dressed for dinner."

She turned swiftly and walked back to the house, leaving Mortimer to grumble to himself as he followed, already planning out how he would tell Bella about this when he saw her the next day.

Gunther's business dinners were never interesting, and Mortimer sat in his itchy brown sweater (check this) picking at his food despite several fiery warning glances from his mother. He liked grilled salmon, but he hated listening to his father "talk shop," as his mother described it, with his work colleagues. He hated it even more when they tried to make conversation with him. He got tired of answering "so how's school?" with "it's fine."

Eventually, Cornelia brought out a still-warm key lime pie and cut a slice for everyone, and Mortimer cheered up. His father's guests seemed to relax in the presence of the pie as well: they were all sitting back, smiling, and talking casually, and some of them had loosened their ties. Mortimer wondered briefly if Nancy Landgraab would even take her hair down from its usual bun, but came to the conclusion that they would need magic pie for that to happen.

When their plates were clean, Gunther and the Corporate people wandered into the living room. The fire looked warm and cozy, but Cornelia shooed Mortimer off to bed. Preferring to be finally excused from the dinner party, he went upstairs without argument.

But he didn't feel like sleeping. Instead, after listening carefully to what was happening downstairs, he snuck up to the attic, where he kept his easel. Whenever he felt annoyed or upset, Mortimer liked to come up here, where he could revel in the solitude and let his feelings out onto the canvas. By the light of the nearly-full moon, he spent several hours painting, lost in his own thoughts, and didn't go back to his room until the house was quiet, the dinner guests having long gone and his parents having retired to their own bedroom.

He climbed into bed and turned off the light, finally content enough to slip into a dream-filled slumber.

In the weeks that followed, Gunther continued to try and persuade Mortimer to get to know some of the other kids in town – Malcolm Landgraab, Kaylynn Langerak, Skip Javeed the paper boy, or the son of Iqbal Alvi, a report processor at Doo Peas Corporate. But Mortimer had inherited his father's stubborn streak, perhaps even more so than Gunther himself, and this only made him fight harder to spend as much time as he possibly could with Bella.

Eventually, it was Bella herself who convinced him this wasn't a wise move. After school one day they were hanging out on the playground, Bella on the swings and Mortimer sitting on the play structure, his legs dangling over the edge. He was in the middle of a story from the week before when Gunther had instructed him to practice chess rather than bike to meet Bella at Maywood Glen when Bella, slowing her swinging, interrupted quietly, "You know, Morty, maybe you should listen to your dad."

Mortimer, torn between being indignant and being hurt, opened his mouth but didn't say anything, and Bella carried on. "I mean, I love hanging out with you, but I think if you keep going against him he's going to say we can't hang out at all." Uncharacteristic sadness crept into her face as she gently rocked back and forth on the swing, and Mortimer felt guilty that this possibility hadn't occurred to him before.

"I'm sorry, Bella...I didn't mean to make that happen. I just want to keep playing with you," he said, his mouth pulling down at the corners as he thought of a life without spending time with Bella.

She smiled at him, the sadness lessening somewhat. "I know." She laughed. "You're just going about it the wrong way."

He grinned back. "Lucky I have you. You always know what to do, Bella."

She shook her head modestly. "Nah. I'm just a kid."

So Mortimer and Bella reluctantly agreed to spend more time with other kids (though Mortimer thought to himself that he'd just be by himself, spending his time painting) for a while, though of course they wouldn't stop hanging out altogether. When they biked back to Bella's house and Bella got off her bike to go inside, Mortimer gave her a long hug and waved to her until she was in the house before setting off again for his own home.

And yes, he missed her already.

He did miss her less over the weeks that followed, up in the attic making the art that formed in his mind, but she was always in the back of his head. Still, he was having fun being creative, and was getting much more adept at bringing the images in his head to life on a flat canvas.

And if art weren't enough, on Mortimer's tenth birthday, he received some _very_ surprising news.


End file.
